


Moonshine in the Warehouse

by Wynkat



Category: Adam Lambert (Musician), Glam Rock RPF
Genre: Gen, Magic, Songfic, Voodoo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-07
Updated: 2010-08-07
Packaged: 2017-10-10 23:48:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/105790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wynkat/pseuds/Wynkat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After two months of listening to Adam Lambert sing about voodoo and slink around in *his* top hat, the Baron Samedi has decided that a former slaughterhouse is the perfect place to have a word or three with the singer about magic, music and death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moonshine in the Warehouse

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not know Adam Lambert or the members of his family (TM), I am just borrowing their avatars to create stories that will hopefully entertain and perhaps inspire. No disrespect or infringement is intended or implied. As for the Baron… well, that is a much longer story, and he knows how to find me if he doesn't like the results of his requested fic.
> 
> A/N: Assorted links posted at the end.

The backstage, such as it was, of the Pavilion in Lubbock was hot. Hotter than hell. Hotter than sanity. Adam was already sweating getting ready, which meant that it was too fucking hot for the coat, even just for "Voodoo". Opening with it in Vegas had been bad enough. That had been outside, with a breeze. Word had already trickled back that there was only one fan in the whole damn venue and the A/C was blowing hot air into the dank warehouse. Trying to wear the coat here would be like asking to pass out on stage. It was almost too hot for the hat, but there were limits to what he was willing to put aside even for his own comfort. The hat was staying.

The moment the thought formed, Adam could swear he heard laughter echo through the dressing room and a voice that seemed to whisper: "Good."

"Stop moving," Sutan chided him, eye pencil waving in the air.

"Sorry," Adam said, turning back to his makeup artist. "Sorry."

Sutan sighed heavily. "You're gonna melt all this off before the show's half over."

"Yeah."

"What?"

"Nothing," Adam started to shake his head and stopped at Sutan's glare. "Just this place. Creeping me out, you know?"

Sutan nodded. "You'll make it rock."

"Yeah, we will," Adam agreed, trying to pull his shit together. Today had been a fantastic day, and there was no way he was going to let the fact that _Management_ had booked them into a former slaughterhouse, change that.

+++

 

The crowd let out a roar as the playback of "For Your Entertainment" cut out. Adam took his place at the top of the stage, mic in hand. The energy of nearly two thousand people surged up and into him, filling all the aching, tired places in his body and soul.

He took a deep breath and poured his response back to them.

_Moon shine on the bayou_  
Love shrine break the taboo  
I wanna know what's in your potion  
Bound by total devotion

The light from the scrim at Adam's back washed across him and down along the floor, painting the audience in stage magic. The glitter on their faces winked as they moved, following him as he stalked down the stairs.

_I was lookin' for love all over_  
You're the hunter and I'm your prey  
Now I'm lost in a love hangover  
I try to leave but I have to stay

A gust of cold air curled around his ears and down his neck; a stark contrast to the heat of the stage.

"Can you see them Singer-boy?"

Adam looked over his shoulder, hunting for the speaker. Monte looked back at him, a question in his eyes.

"Can you see them?" the voice asked again, crawling across his face with hands of ice.

Beyond the stage, the mass of bodies moved, weaving with the music, pulsing under the lights.

"Can. You. See. Them?" The voice was nearly solid now, a physical form, pressing at him from just behind his shoulder. Adam wanted to look, to turn and see who was speaking, instead he controlled his breathing and made his body move through the choreography

_'Cause it's voodoo voodoo voodoo (under your spell)_

As he danced he looked out, beyond the crowd, to the edge of his awareness. And there, past the bodies, past the glitter, and the paint, and the smell of sex that he experienced every night, that drove him on every time he hit the stage, was a shimmer of something else.

"Yes…yes…" the voice whispered against his neck, warmer this time.

They were in the shadows. All along the edges of this god-forsaken building the event people called a concert hall, he could see them; shapes and forms that were not quite there, moving to a beat that was almost in sync with his own song.

"Yes. There."

_'Cause it's voodoo voodoo voodoo (under your spell)_

A hand gripped his shoulder. When Adam twisted to look, because he couldn't _not_ look this time, the bones of a hand rested there, stretching out from a deep purple tuxedo sleeve.

"They come to listen just as the living do, but they have more reason. More need. Will you deny them Singer?"

The face that gazed at Adam was serene, certain of its power and place. Its one living eye was bright with humor and something Adam had no name for.

He shook his head and behind the stranger, with his black and purple top hat, Adam saw Sasha frown. He shook his head again, trying to reassure her, and himself, then turned and called to Brooke with his hands, just as he did every night.

_Swamp sings of a love bizarre_  
Snake bites aligning stars  
I'm in rapture there is no cure  
No sanctuary from your allure 

The stranger paced ahead of Adam, running his boney hands through first Brooke's hair and then across Taylor's cheek where he waited, poised to move with the drums. Both dancers shivered at the non-existent breeze. Adam wanted to shout at the stranger to leave them alone, let them dance and keep them out of whatever insanity he had fallen into.

"They are pretty little things, your mortal dancers. Do they see what you see each night as you stand here in my robes?"

Adam looked at the top hat looming over his shoulder and felt the weight of the one on his head. _Baron Samedi_. The name crashed through his mind like the scream of a lover. More than one reviewer had called him that when they described the New Orleans theme and black magic look of the shows opening sequence.

"Now you begin to understand, cheré." The Baron laughed, and the shadows of the dead laughed with him.

Adam nearly ran to Taylor. He needed something normal. A friend, a human being that he knew and cared for.

The stage, already too small and uncomfortable in the hot confines of the slaughterhouse, was now overflowing with the shadows of dead cattle, all swaying in a sick imitation of dance.

_I was lookin' for love all over_  
You're the hunter and I'm your prey  
Now I'm lost in a love hangover  
I try to leave but I have to stay

As he stalked away from Taylor's swinging arm, Adam saw more figures slip into the gap between the audience and the stage, heedless of the bouncers. He wanted to scream or laugh or gulp a huge fucking cup of tequila as the bodies differentiated themselves. There were human forms among the animals.

"Not everything that dies here was killed for food," the Baron purred into Adam's ear. "Sometimes it is for revenge. Sometimes it is for mercy. Sometimes it is just death." The bones in the Baron's hand clacked as he waved them out over the crowd like a king blessing his people. "Death comes to everyone one way or another. If you are going to sing and move as me, you need to know this, cheré."

_'Cause it's voodoo voodoo voodoo (under your spell)_

"Do you even know what it is you sing, beautiful one?"

Adam blinked. He had no frame of reference for this conversation, and he was desperately trying to keep hold of his sanity and his voice.

"Forget the music for a moment."

The Baron waved his hand again and silence filled Adam's ears. Around him were statues, his friends and family, the whole audience caught in a flash of movement stilled.

"What…?"

"Voodoo."

"Are they…?"

"They are fine. They are there. You are here. The music, the magic, holds the door open so that you can listen to what I have to tell you without worrying so much."

Adam looked around again. Nothing moved but the shadows of the dead. "Okay."

"Okay," the Baron repeated and then laughed. "You should see your face! So scared, but so brave. You'll do."

"Do what?"

The Baron paced around Adam, his cane tapping on the stage's wood planks as he went. The tails of his tux seemed to float on a current of air separate from the breeze that coiled around his hands. As he moved, Adam could smell fresh turned soil and wood soap. He thought of the last time he'd stood at a graveside and watched a casket be lowered into the ground and he knew that he would never again forget that particular scent of death and life mixed together under the morning sun.

"You sing the words," Samedi said, his spats covered shoes treading an ever tighter spiral in towards Adam. "You wear my robes. You even loved a man of my lands. But do you understand? Do you know what it is you are doing up here with that voice you worked so hard to train?"

"I sing," Adam said, words pressing at his throat. "There's music inside and I have to sing."

"But do you know what you sing? How your song affects the world?" Samedi's arms were around Adam's chest, the cane binding him in place. Samedi's body towered over Adam from behind, restraining him, overwhelming him. Then one of the Baron's hands tugged at his hair, pulling Adam's head back, exposing his neck and his racing pulse. "Do you?"

"I don't…I…" Adam struggled for words. His heart was racing, his mind torn into fragments. His body was responding to the Baron's power even as he rode the edge of fear. "I want to. I'm trying to understand."

Samedi pressed his face to Adam's neck, burning a kiss into his flesh. Adam felt the living side of the Baron's mouth first, hot and human, followed a moment later by ice cold bone as the dead side touched his skin. Adam shivered and fought back a moan.

"Tell me what you have learned already," the Baron whispered.

Adam closed his eyes and stopped fighting himself and the strangeness of the moment. He knew the answers to these questions, if he could just allow himself to hear them.

"Music is power and magic," he said on a sigh. "It's life and light and love and everything that is possible. It can show us the depths of our souls and bring us up from despair or drag us down into the pit. Music is connection and passion and hope. It teaches people… what it means to hold something precious and know that it can never be taken away."

"Yes… yes…" The Baron let his cane drop away and wrapped Adam in his arms, one thin and sharp, one warm and soft. "What else, Singer? What else can you do with your music?"

"I try to help, to give them back some of what they give to me. And show them how beautiful they each are, every single one of them. Show them how much I love them. How precious they are in this world."

"Yes!" Samedi cheered, hugging Adam in his arms. "Now," The Baron pulled away and Adam stumbled, lost for a moment without the Death Lord's support. "Now, look out again. See my children. See the dead."

Adam followed Samedi's hand. Mixed among the frozen living people where thousands of dead, four-legged, two-legged, and even winged ones roosting along the cat-walk. Their eyes watched him, waiting for what was coming.

"Can you sing for them? Can you show them the same love and care that you show your living lovers?" The Baron waved his hands over the crowd.

Adam looked out over the audience. He could feel the need of the dead pulsing in the back of his ribs right alongside the feeling he associated with a living audience. Its rhythm was syncopated differently than the other and felt like moonshine. He closed his eyes and reached inside. He hunted with his thoughts and his heart for the core of his own energy, that force that he used to connect with an audience, which had felt so drained tonight at the thought of this bitter place of death. He felt the connection with the dead resonate in his heart and smiled. He could do this. He took a deep breath and sang the chorus.

_'Cause it's voodoo voodoo voodoo (under your spell)_

He felt the shadows of the dead respond. The energy around him changed, the air heated and went still. The smell of the graveyard hung like streamers around the stage, but now at least he knew why. Opening his eyes, Adam saw the dead begin to dance, leaping into the rhythm of the song along with him instead of rocking against its beat. He sang the chorus again and they flowed together, wrapped in a wall of music and warmth.

Sound exploded around Adam, LP filling the air with a riff of drum beats, Monte and Tommy sliding along their stings on either side of Adam, and the audience of living and dead screaming along with them all as the Baron released his spell.

_'Cause the voodoo you do_  
Is all that can do  
To make me into your fool  
'Cause when you do voodoo  
I'm just like a doll  
That pins keep pushing into

"Thank you," the Baron whispered. Adam smiled and watched him settle into a seat of sorts along one wall of the venue.

_So every time I try to break this trance_  
I'm almost afraid I'll miss my chance  
To be bewitched, bothered by you.  
I just gotta say I want your hex  
I don't want to live without your hex  
I'm so obsessed with your sexiness

Adam and the band slid into "Down the Rabbit Hole" with little fuss. It was still hotter than hell and getting hotter by the minute. No one, not even Tommy, with his love of horror movies, was going to believe what Adam had just been through, but he didn't care. He could still see and feel the dead dancing and celebrating alongside the living. That was what mattered. He'd just blame the rest on the tequila.

"_Who are you?_" Adam sang out to the crowd at the transition into "Ring of Fire" and heard laughter echo thru his head.

"_An excellent question,_" the Baron whispered. When Adam looked out into the crowd, the Baron smiled back from his seat. "_But one I suspect we should save for another time. Don't you?_"

Adam was definitely blaming the tequila.

**Author's Note:**

> For those not living on YouTube or in the Adam Comms, here are some links to help fill in any holes you might have. (Sorry, I haven't actually been able to find a video of the Voodoo performance from Lubbock, there are a few pictures though.) And some links for those interested in learning more about the Baron.
> 
> Opening Medley (Voodoo/Down the Rabbit Hole/Ring of Fire) Las Vegas, NZ 7/31/10  
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9PGyzeX5_s
> 
> If I had You (with band intros and tequila) Lubbock, TX 8/4/10  
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4CNapdyV3w
> 
> Photos of Voodoo from Lubbock, TX by @aligningstars  
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/bleedingxsoul/4867657049/  
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/bleedingxsoul/4868271658/
> 
> Some general info about Baron Samedi:  
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baron_Samedi  
> http://www.squidoo.com/baron-samedi


End file.
